After driving several hours we finally made it to the amusement park. Despite it being early evening the sky was dark and the parking lot outside the park was pitch black. There were no overhead lights but the full moon illuminated just enough for us to see. The lot itself was surrounded by tall pine trees but I could make out the red and green glow of the attractions. I heard faint music and peels of laughter.
My mom pulled into a spot near the middle of the lot. She made a joke that she could see eyes in the tree line. I looked out my window but didn’t see anything. She said there was a bear and again I laughed at her strange attempt at a joke. There was just enough of a glow from the moon and amusement park to see there were no beasts in the lot with us. Still I got freaked out and asked if she could park further away from the trees. “They’re everywhere” was her only response.
I began fixing my makeup in the rear view mirror. My mom told me to hurry up because the eyes were getting closer. The joke was getting old. I rolled my own eyes and got out of the car. It was then that I heard something mixed in with the distant twinkling music. Heavy breathing. I instantly knew my mother hadn’t been lying and something was in the parking lot with us.
“Don’t look at it” my mother said urgently, “let’s just start walking”, she continued.
I couldn’t look in the thing’s direction if I wanted to. “What is it? What’s it doing?” I asked.
“It’s a bear. I think it’s just sitting there. We’re okay to walk towards the park” she responded.
I needed to grab my wallet from the trunk. As I went round to the back of the car I saw it. Perfectly illuminated in the moonlight was a brown bear sitting only 10 feet away. I gasped and turned towards my mother. It was so close! How could she have gotten out of the car? Why would she park here?
Before I could flip out my mom turned and began walking briskly towards the glow of the amusement park. In my stunned and scared state I simply followed her, caught up to her, and grabbed her arm.
As we walked I could still hear the sounds of the rides and see lights through the trees but I saw no entrance into the park and no way out of the damned parking lot.
Then I heard the unmistakable sound of four feet trudging towards us. I looked over my shoulder and the bear was galloping towards my mother and I. It was grotesque. The bear’s limbs were too long and lanky. It ran like a human trying to run on all fours. Awkward yet menacing. The thing’s face looked deranged. I thought it might have been rabid. It came up to us and nosed it’s snout between my mother and I, separating us. It pushed into my stomach guiding me away from my mother. I was able to get away from it and went back to grab my mom’s arm. Again we kept walking towards a park we could hear but not see. My mother was unreasonably calm and determined to keep walking. She wouldn’t listen to my pleas to turn back and get back in the car. Didn’t she see there was a rabid bear following us???
Again the bear came between us, pushing me away from my mother. I remembered that when dealing with a bear it’s best to puff up and look menacing so I tried that. I stood up and opened my arms and screamed at the bear. All while my mom watched on cooly. The bears response to my attempt to scare it was the bite down on my hand. I began crying for my mother, why wasn’t she helping me?? The bear’s bite had drawn blood but it was gentle. And this terrifying creature began leading me back towards the car. My car. The car I bought two years ago after I’d moved away from home.
My back was to my mother now. And I heard strange menacing noises coming from her direction. I noticed the screams of children on rollercoasters sounded much closer and more sickening. They no longer sounded like shrieks of joy but rather those of pain.
The bear continued to lead me towards my car. The one neither of my parents had seen yet because they hadn’t been able to visit me due to the pandemic. The further I got away from the thing pretending to be my mother the clearer my head began to feel.
The nightmare bear let go of my hand a few feet from the car.
“S-Syd?” I heard my mom call out. It sounded just like her. She sounded so sad. “Don’t you wanna go to the park with me? I miss you.” I wanted so desperately to turn around. I missed her too.
The bear gave me a rough nudge with its snout and I fell in front of the drivers side door.
“Come back you ungrateful slut!” The mom thing yelled. It didn’t sound like her voice anymore. I knew no matter what I couldn’t turn and look at it. I scrambled up off the ground and fumbled with the keys to unlock the car… how’d I get the keys? Didn’t she drive here? Did I drive myself here? Again I had the urge to look around but I knew if I did I’d be lost in the lot of the phantom park forever. Just another part of that thing’s twisted amusement.
I caught a glimpse of it in the rearview as I sped away. It had partially shed my mothers skin and looked like a deformed version of her. To this day I don’t fully understand what happened. I would be convinced it was a nightmare if not for the scars on my hand where the bear had bitten down to lead me back to safety. The best I can come up with is that I’d encountered a Skinwalker and fell under its spell. I think the bear was perhaps one of its victims who’d escaped the confines of the park to try to help others from falling into the same trap.